Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/230

 222 The servants cooked a hot supper and breakfast for us and for themselves every day, getting out and making a fire by the side of the car-track. Sometimes, most of the time indeed, they held big religious meetings in their car. We could hear the preaching and the hymns above the sound of the running cars. As we ran very slowly and irregularly, this was not strange. At several towns we spent a whole day, and on such occasions we got off and called on friends and shopped a little.

Our father's sister, Mrs. Chamberlayne, had joined him in Georgia, and accompanied us to our Mississippi home. A more delightful companion could not be imagined. Her rare mental gifts, disciplined and brightened by a lifetime of steady and judicious reading, inspired the most profound admiration in the circle of young people who gathered around her. She was practical, too, and made many happy suggestions to promote the comfort of the party.

Papa was singularly simple and unobservant in some of his ways. This peculiarity led him into an amusing contretemps on this journey.

A sudden shower had caught several of us as we were out walking while laying up for the night at Columbus, Georgia. One of the daughters was drenched to the skin, and had no dress to make a change. Our good neat Hannah had a blue homespun, which she had just washed and ironed in the nicest fashion, and it was decided to borrow her dress rather than run the risk of getting a cold. It was late in September and chilly. We had a family laugh over the ridiculous appearance of Hannah's long-waisted, ill-fitting dress. It was novel and very amusing until a visitor's voice was heard at the car door.

At the first note the blue homespun whisked under one of the tables. The gentleman was ushered in by papa and introduced, and ho was so well entertained that he sat there during the greater part of the evening. By and by he remarked that he had had the pleasure of meeting one of the young ladies some time before. But she did not seem to be present, as he